... Echelon is between English-speaking nations...
You named the founders of Echelon but it's probably bigger than those nations. Afaik there are Echelon stations in Norway and Germany, probably most Nato countries (except France who often can't be viewed as fully participating). Switzerland isn't part of Nato but Italy is and I wouldn't be surprized if they were in on it and/or have mutual agreements to provide data to as well as get data from the Echelon system.
Encryption is a good thing, but failing to provide the key(s) under a valid warrant or in court will be used against you under most law. For plausible deniability you need steganography
lol funny story but I know why they did some of it:
0. I'm sure they did backups of their data, making the "ultimate" offline copies for the archive is adding another level of redundancy to the backup.
1. dragging your laptop from archive to archive (not the zip kind but the fireproofed steel ones) finding references from a mail can be cumbersome, even a tablet pc loses out to a sheet of paper (or many). Maybe some of those archives are digitized but for really important cases they would still want to find true carbon copies.
2. same goes for inclusion into court papers, sumbission as evidence, contracts etc., being able to offer a paper printed at receival, stamped by a second person, in addition to an electronic copy carries more weight than just an electronic copy.
Even with excellent electronic timestamps and digital signatures, paper (done right) will rule the legal world. The two formats aren't mutually exclusive.
As for games as a learning experience they should get ample training in tediousness by harvesting everything in some of those micromanagement resource-based strategy games like Warcraft2:)
Not sure they would mind people doing this as it will give them more (and likely better) information for their targeted ads which make them money.
Maybe we will see Google expanding gmail into a kind of roaming profile and home folder as well as roaming email? (roaming email is what web email is after all). Put two-party public encryption on top of that (Google and you combined, ie. a fix so they and you can read it but only you can edit it) and the Sun idea of "the network is the computer" is one step closer.
If secure enough it would be great if one could use Google this way - boot your Knoppix cd (or similar) and get your 1GB of "anything" at any machine on the net. All of this is just as possible without Google of course, but letting Google foot the bill has a cretain appeal;)
Yup but don't forget that as soon as a person has fallen in love with Firefox, or Mozilla, or Opera, they have themselves become mini-geeks and are usually proud to display their "know-how" to all who are still using Internet Error:)
I don't think IE will be the largest in one or two years if they continue to have the recent level of troubles, "normal" people are getting sick of it.
As long as IE is integrated into the OS they'll always have more trouble than other browsers with security, especially as they need to add new functionality to play catch up, the public is learning this the slow and hard way.
I say let MS try, by the time they are finished trying they'll probably have 25% desktop market share;)
Joe User cares more and more, especially when the solution is painfully simple. That being said Mozilla and Firefox really need to make upgrading while keeping all settings, plugins, and plugin settings an automated nobrainer (especially mail encryption):S
Interesting numbers, do you have comparable numbers for the EU? (I don't).
I agree completely that if a big prize would attract a lot of extra investement it would be superb.
Hmm, I've followed the Ansari X-Prize for at least two years now and while writing this reply I realized I was overly pessimistic about something similar in alternative energy, it might just work:)...so I edited away a huge chuck here lol.
However, I don't think big companies already investing in such R&D would be too interested in participating unless for PR reasons. They have their own strategic interests to protect.
Also it might be beneficial to keep the contestants at somewhat the same level it was in the Ansari X-Prize. Not sure about this but I'm thinking about teams formed around less explored ideas/methods (university level research). Depends a lot on the aims of the prize I guess.
It really is a lot harder than going suborbital
As to the numbers, if I read you correctly you are referring to R&D spent by the US government, and my gut feeling is that it will pale in comparison to US private/corporate R&D spending on alternative energy (just something like GE R&D on windmills is probably quite big). Much of it is by oil companies on non-fossile fuels as they know (probably better than anyone) that they need to diversify their potential in the energy market (Shell and BP are good examples of this, multinationals but likely to do a lot of the R&D in the US). A lot of university research (much of it related to questions important to alternative energy) is also corporately sponsored (at least compared to the situation in other countries than the US). In addition to this federal and state incentives for alternative fuels are big in the US and have a huge non-monetary impact on investment (I'm especially thinking about hydrogen and californian legislation).
All in all I wouldn't be surprised if the US is actually the country both spending the most money and doing the most research in alternative energy. Maybe not relative to population size, but at least in quantity.
I agree, even starvation (which another poster mentioned) can often (in part) be attributed to lack of energy, for example local overuse of wood contributing to drought or desertification.
Still, research into energy sources probably wont get much help from prizes given out afterwards: either they're already funded by governments or (usually oil) companies, or they lack enough present funding like this interesting fusion project: http://www.focusfusion.org/home.html - disregard the horrible site design, and if there's a VC out there why not have a closer look? If it's successful you'll make Paul Allen green with envy;)
Such projects or other more established ones might benefit a lot more from "fasttracking" than a prize by getting more funds and brainpower. Then again with all the research going on it might not help at all: do we want to try a broad approach or hedge our bets on a few? Choosing is very hard. Most governments in America, Europe, Asia and Oceania are giving pretty big incentives for energy research as it is. Some big examples are the US hydrogen focus, Chinas pebble reactors (the South African Republic is also looking at this, so Africa is in too), and the Australian solar tower (european technology), and there are lots and lots of smaller projects almost everywhere.
As some of the other posters have alluded to or pointed out Drexlers vision of nanotechnology (now recoined by Drexler as zettatechnology) already exist in nature (cells, bacteria, etc.). What is missing is Drexlers fundamental point about why one would be trying to duplicate such atom-manipulating capabilities by synthetic (as in non-biological) means. The answer is unlimited control, and is misconstrued into an argument against Drexlers vision by Smalley.
Lets try a comparison to explain the difference between Smalley and Drexler in a way which should be easy for all here: "math formulas vs. computers".
Math formulas comparative to the Smalley approach (nanotechnology):
One formula does only one or perhaps a few things maximum if constrained in different ways. If you want to do something else you need to make a new formula or combination of formulas to reach your goal. This approach degrades "nanotechnology" into just another buzzword for advanced chemistry as it uses exactly the same old methology and is limited to the natural properties of atoms and molecules in groups.
Computers comparative to the Drexler approach (zettatechnology):
A computer is a tool not only for solving one or a few goals, but a tool that can be used to solve everything that can be represented digitally. This is all done from a few fairly simple tools that form the core of a computer: logic gates. This is analogous to the basis of Drexlers idea which is to find ways to manipulate individual atoms (such as IBM did when they crafted their logo out of xenon atoms). The more ways you can find to manipulate individual atoms and combinations of such tools the stronger and more powerful zettatechnology becomes.
Just as with math formulas and computers the approaches share other characteristics:
Computers took far more technology to create than math formulas, but when it was achieved computers showed themselves to be immensly more powerful - also for computing math formulas. This will not seem strange at all to the average/.'er as computers was made to be a tool presisely for computing any mathematical forumla one could wish for.
In the same way zettatechnology will take far more technology to create than chemistry, but when achieved will show itself to be far more powerful - also for chemistry. When this happens it will not seem strange to the average/.'er;) as zettatechnology was made to be a tool precisely for applying any kind of chemistry one could wish for.
The big deal with both computers and zettatechnology is their general nature. Zettatechnology doesn't defy the laws of chemistry or physics, it's a general tool which enriches the way one can use said laws.
Other likely similarities is that the first computer was enormous: the first "zettamachine" is likely to be enormous (compared to later generations) as well. In computers anything represented digitally is feasible, there are no borders for what is possible except for lack of time: in zettamachines anything possible within the laws of nature will be possible except for lack of time. And just like computers advanced the science of mathematics, zettamachines will advance the science of chemistry through the nature of being a generalized, multi-function tool.
In XX years time Drexler (and Feynman) will be as historical becaue of their ideas on nano/zettatechnology as Turing and Babbage are for modern computers. His direction of attacking the overall problem is (as I hope I've made abundantly clear) basically the same as theirs. No amount of attack on the specifics of one proposed method of atom manipulation from Smalley will change that (it will only ensure that USA loses to China or possibly Europe in this technology as Smalley only influences the US nanotechnology aims).
There is one other big difference between the two:
Drexler advocates a high le
I'm sure Kerry feels he can justify his views on the war regardless of what Bush says, as a matter of fact that is what he is currently doing anyway. Said differently: Kerry being pro-war doesn't make him pro-Bush. He wouldn't hesitate to impeach if he thought it was achievable, and nor would any other democrat and a fair number of republicans.
Impeachment on lying about aluminium tubes (for which no proof has yet appeared) is a lot different to impeachment on "war fraud" in total. In the latter case one would have to prove Bush lied about a lot more (for which there is even less proof) and for which you would have to involve serious charges against almost all of congress, most of departments, intelligence agencies (not only US ones), previous administrations, and the UN itself. Why? Because they all contributed significant proportions of information to what the Bush administration based their beliefs on (and much of which is common facts) and/or passed (positive) judgment on the quality of said information.
Nader has a lot less to lose and a lot more to win and can do pretty much anything he wants to without repercussions as the major parties try to avoid giving him any additional spotlight (i.e. a slander charge is a lot less likely). If Nader had proof which would hold up in court I'm convinced he would go to court, senate, and congress with it, and we would have a totally different ballgame than the present low-signal noise from some parts of the public.
We won't see an impeachment simply because noone has solid proof.
Read the NYT article and it should be apparent to you that they have a much more mellow and subdued tone. Compare it to the inflammatory slant of michaels slashdot news entry and the thrashtalking rampant throughout almost all of the comments here. That's how the NYT article is used as an "excuse".
Read the NYT article as well as most of the comments here and it should also be obvious that this is in fact a very old story. Adding anonymous sources doesn't make an old story new.
For all those who don't get it:
Believing someone lied doesn't automatically make it a fact no matter how strong your conviction unless you have actual proof, such proof hasn't appeared.
If you think that there is such proof then here's a simple test for you:
Kerry has everything to win on proving Bush flat out lied, so if he had, found, or learnt of information and proof that such was the case you would see it used for an impeachment - an impeachment, not partisan politics - instead all you've got is a lot of people who choose to believe something, not proof. There is a reason Kerry avoids using the word "lie", it is because he and his team knows that they have nowhere near the proof neccessary to back it up and would thus be slandering. Both parties regularily bend the truth and the fact that Kerry so carefully avoids "lie" should tell you something about how little they actually have on this issue.
Sounds to me like you (as well as a depressing number of other slashdotters) really should visit the FactCheck link provided in my post - the world isn't as black and white and neither as simplistic as many of you seem to believe...
Good point. Sadly it doesn't amaze me that much as I'm living in Europe (non-US citizen) where a large and loud minority always blame the US no matter what they do and preferably for anything/everything; a perfect example is the other reply you got.
As a side note I hope the US never becomes isolationist again, if they do it will (just as the other times) be incredibly bad for the rest of the world in the long term (and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't stop the anti-USA mob from continuing to blame you for everything imaginable).
There isn't any news in this "news" for anyone, it seems like just another excuse to be able to trashtalk Bush, rewrapping an old story using people "all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity" (NYT quoted). In addition the NYT article states "American nuclear and intelligence experts argued bitterly over the tubes", it should seem obvious for all that choosing which point of view or arguments to believe is not lying even if you are later proved wrong.
For all those who are tired of loudmouths
endlessly repeating their favourite rants ("Bush/Kerry is a liar" etc.) here's a link to FactCheck.org: http://factcheck.org/.
Go - Read - Think - Think some more - Read some more - Doubt your assumptions - Think again - Vote (if you're an US citizen) for whoever you agree the most with but please respect that others do not see the world through your eyes, heart and brain (observations/feelings/thoughts).
Please differentiate yourself from the Moore/Limbaugh crowd and be proud of it. Please don't base any vote on who shouts the loudest or for that matter on whoever shouts less.
Put the former into a phrase: "I was lead to read the red book which was a heavy as lead, which was amongst the reeds" - I am sure you will have some people making mistakes here.
You weren't "lead" to read, you were "led" to read ("led" is past tense of "lead"). So yes your point is proven, you will have some people making mistakes:)
Many (including me) believe the "Creator" is eternal which makes appearance a non-question.
For the (hopefully scientific) atheist who has problems grasping this idea they can compare the eternal property of said belief to the energy conservation law which states that the sum total of all energy is constant (i.e. one could say that the total amount of energy is an eternal constant). It's related mental patterns and if you believe the law of energy conservation it's not hard to see how others might believe in an eternal deity.
Anyway, deploying Occam's Razor in non-empirical questions hints of ignorance more than anything else: logic run loose without any rationality to herd it in:) so the discussion is moot.
Believing nothing can exist that isn't empirical isn't scientific (the logic of such a belief would be the equivalent of saying "I can't see it so it isn't there"), but believing science can say something fairly certain about the empirical (detectable) is scientific. Two completely different things. Religion and science will always exist side by side as neither can disprove each other. For those of us who enjoy both science and religion this is a joy;)
"Religious" brain-teaser for the atheists: Particle/mass-less pure waveforms... goes faster than light and is 100% undetectable so you choose yourself if you believe there can be such a thing.
If you choose to believe it's a possibility you ain't atheist no more - sorry;)
I agree with you wholeheartedly and also the gist of your solution but the devil in me can't resist noting that 50% of 150% is 75%, just a friendly nudge:)
So if your solution is followed to the letter (i.e. 50% energy redundancy) one would want a 200% capacity. In addition some energy needs are critical enough to warrant a back-up system which can't be based directly on wind no matter what (think grid failures (both small and large), statistical abnomalities in wind generation etc.).
With 200% capacity one still needs to find a use for the extra 100% unless one just "dumps" it (which would make the used 100% twice as expensive for the consumer). Such a dumping is the least effective/popular/environmental friendly and so the need for storing electricity/energy efficiently arises none the less. In my opinion the best would be to use the 0-100% extra energy on creation of something akin to methanol fuel because: - it's easy, raw materials are just about everywhere and the technology is mature - the energy transmission itself might not be the highest but if one looks at the total cost of the energy transmission (the technology, ease of use, existing infrastructure etc.) it's probably very good - it scales well both up and down - it has high mobility and can use existing infrastructure as it's so closely related to gasoline and the like - it can replace fossile fuels in backup generators, cars and the like The prime use (at least in early stages) of the generated fuel would of course be for smoothing out the below-100% dips locally (and this would probably lower the needed total capacity towards your original 150%). One might of course choose to store the energy in different or multiple ways to cater for different fuel/energy markets. The beauty of the "wind to electricity as well as complementary fuels" system is that it is extremely flexible.
By the way one might think one could just dump the electricity on the market directly but by doing so the economics of supply and demand would quickly make 200% the new 100%, i.e. one can always figure out something one needs more energy for.
The problems: - high cost of entry (capital investments) especially considering wind technology is evolving at a fairly rapid rate which means one might have problems being competitive to newer wind-plants in ten years unless one continues the fairly massive capital investments (that's a "big company" analyzis for the big highly efficient windmills with the newest technology but if one looks at the investment needed on an individual basis at a large scale it pretty much ends up the same with the drops in efficiency, added need for administration, increased system complexity etc. included) - location, windmills demand a lot of space as well as space with good wind records to achieve the low prices that makes it competitive. In addition more and more people oppose them as eyesores, dangerous to birds, noisy and whatnot. These additional concerns will probably decrease over time - electrical infrastructure, I'm not sure the grid as it is can handle the increased switching demands, e.g. consider (as a comparison) the changes needed to make a residence not only accept energy (the one-way energy transfer almost all have today) but also provide energy back (two-way energy transfer).
The problems are of course solveable (money) but we're not there yet (moving in the right direction though - could be quicker)
Slashdot Mirror
... Echelon is between English-speaking nations ...
You named the founders of Echelon but it's probably bigger than those nations. Afaik there are Echelon stations in Norway and Germany, probably most Nato countries (except France who often can't be viewed as fully participating). Switzerland isn't part of Nato but Italy is and I wouldn't be surprized if they were in on it and/or have mutual agreements to provide data to as well as get data from the Echelon system.
Encryption is a good thing, but failing to provide the key(s) under a valid warrant or in court will be used against you under most law. For plausible deniability you need steganography
oops missed an 8 in slasHdot, revise all numbers accordingly
S L A S H D O T
:)
19+12+1+19+4+15+20=90%
which could make one think that work=10% but since
W O R K
23+15+18+11=67%
one should be able to prove for any PHB that slashdot and work overlaps by at least a staggering 57%
Btw why post this as AC? You should get recognition for this
imho (humble)
;)
1
-
0
or 1/0 if you wish, explains everything
*goes to make t-shirt*
lol funny story but I know why they did some of it:
:)
0. I'm sure they did backups of their data, making the "ultimate" offline copies for the archive is adding another level of redundancy to the backup.
1. dragging your laptop from archive to archive (not the zip kind but the fireproofed steel ones) finding references from a mail can be cumbersome, even a tablet pc loses out to a sheet of paper (or many). Maybe some of those archives are digitized but for really important cases they would still want to find true carbon copies.
2. same goes for inclusion into court papers, sumbission as evidence, contracts etc., being able to offer a paper printed at receival, stamped by a second person, in addition to an electronic copy carries more weight than just an electronic copy.
Even with excellent electronic timestamps and digital signatures, paper (done right) will rule the legal world. The two formats aren't mutually exclusive.
As for games as a learning experience they should get ample training in tediousness by harvesting everything in some of those micromanagement resource-based strategy games like Warcraft2
Any job openings for first post? ;)
:)
But seriously, most finance traders are utter sleazeballs and assholes so the internet and multiplayer games should be good training for them.
Maybe lawyers too?
Not sure they would mind people doing this as it will give them more (and likely better) information for their targeted ads which make them money.
;)
Maybe we will see Google expanding gmail into a kind of roaming profile and home folder as well as roaming email? (roaming email is what web email is after all). Put two-party public encryption on top of that (Google and you combined, ie. a fix so they and you can read it but only you can edit it) and the Sun idea of "the network is the computer" is one step closer.
If secure enough it would be great if one could use Google this way - boot your Knoppix cd (or similar) and get your 1GB of "anything" at any machine on the net. All of this is just as possible without Google of course, but letting Google foot the bill has a cretain appeal
Yup but don't forget that as soon as a person has fallen in love with Firefox, or Mozilla, or Opera, they have themselves become mini-geeks and are usually proud to display their "know-how" to all who are still using Internet Error :)
I don't think IE will be the largest in one or two years if they continue to have the recent level of troubles, "normal" people are getting sick of it.
As long as IE is integrated into the OS they'll always have more trouble than other browsers with security, especially as they need to add new functionality to play catch up, the public is learning this the slow and hard way.
;)
:S
I say let MS try, by the time they are finished trying they'll probably have 25% desktop market share
Joe User cares more and more, especially when the solution is painfully simple. That being said Mozilla and Firefox really need to make upgrading while keeping all settings, plugins, and plugin settings an automated nobrainer (especially mail encryption)
Interesting numbers, do you have comparable numbers for the EU? (I don't).
:) ...so I edited away a huge chuck here lol.
I agree completely that if a big prize would attract a lot of extra investement it would be superb.
Hmm, I've followed the Ansari X-Prize for at least two years now and while writing this reply I realized I was overly pessimistic about something similar in alternative energy, it might just work
However, I don't think big companies already investing in such R&D would be too interested in participating unless for PR reasons. They have their own strategic interests to protect.
Also it might be beneficial to keep the contestants at somewhat the same level it was in the Ansari X-Prize. Not sure about this but I'm thinking about teams formed around less explored ideas/methods (university level research). Depends a lot on the aims of the prize I guess.
It really is a lot harder than going suborbital
As to the numbers, if I read you correctly you are referring to R&D spent by the US government, and my gut feeling is that it will pale in comparison to US private/corporate R&D spending on alternative energy (just something like GE R&D on windmills is probably quite big). Much of it is by oil companies on non-fossile fuels as they know (probably better than anyone) that they need to diversify their potential in the energy market (Shell and BP are good examples of this, multinationals but likely to do a lot of the R&D in the US). A lot of university research (much of it related to questions important to alternative energy) is also corporately sponsored (at least compared to the situation in other countries than the US). In addition to this federal and state incentives for alternative fuels are big in the US and have a huge non-monetary impact on investment (I'm especially thinking about hydrogen and californian legislation).
All in all I wouldn't be surprised if the US is actually the country both spending the most money and doing the most research in alternative energy. Maybe not relative to population size, but at least in quantity.
I agree, even starvation (which another poster mentioned) can often (in part) be attributed to lack of energy, for example local overuse of wood contributing to drought or desertification.
;)
Still, research into energy sources probably wont get much help from prizes given out afterwards: either they're already funded by governments or (usually oil) companies, or they lack enough present funding like this interesting fusion project: http://www.focusfusion.org/home.html - disregard the horrible site design, and if there's a VC out there why not have a closer look? If it's successful you'll make Paul Allen green with envy
Such projects or other more established ones might benefit a lot more from "fasttracking" than a prize by getting more funds and brainpower. Then again with all the research going on it might not help at all: do we want to try a broad approach or hedge our bets on a few? Choosing is very hard. Most governments in America, Europe, Asia and Oceania are giving pretty big incentives for energy research as it is. Some big examples are the US hydrogen focus, Chinas pebble reactors (the South African Republic is also looking at this, so Africa is in too), and the Australian solar tower (european technology), and there are lots and lots of smaller projects almost everywhere.
I'm getting a bit worried that the X-Prize people have lost focus. Better to do one thing right at the time as they have with the Ansari X-Prize.
As some of the other posters have alluded to or pointed out Drexlers vision of nanotechnology (now recoined by Drexler as zettatechnology) already exist in nature (cells, bacteria, etc.). What is missing is Drexlers fundamental point about why one would be trying to duplicate such atom-manipulating capabilities by synthetic (as in non-biological) means. The answer is unlimited control, and is misconstrued into an argument against Drexlers vision by Smalley.
/.'er as computers was made to be a tool presisely for computing any mathematical forumla one could wish for.
In the same way zettatechnology will take far more technology to create than chemistry, but when achieved will show itself to be far more powerful - also for chemistry. When this happens it will not seem strange to the average /.'er ;) as zettatechnology was made to be a tool precisely for applying any kind of chemistry one could wish for.
Lets try a comparison to explain the difference between Smalley and Drexler in a way which should be easy for all here: "math formulas vs. computers".
Math formulas comparative to the Smalley approach (nanotechnology):
One formula does only one or perhaps a few things maximum if constrained in different ways. If you want to do something else you need to make a new formula or combination of formulas to reach your goal. This approach degrades "nanotechnology" into just another buzzword for advanced chemistry as it uses exactly the same old methology and is limited to the natural properties of atoms and molecules in groups.
Computers comparative to the Drexler approach (zettatechnology):
A computer is a tool not only for solving one or a few goals, but a tool that can be used to solve everything that can be represented digitally. This is all done from a few fairly simple tools that form the core of a computer: logic gates. This is analogous to the basis of Drexlers idea which is to find ways to manipulate individual atoms (such as IBM did when they crafted their logo out of xenon atoms). The more ways you can find to manipulate individual atoms and combinations of such tools the stronger and more powerful zettatechnology becomes.
Just as with math formulas and computers the approaches share other characteristics:
Computers took far more technology to create than math formulas, but when it was achieved computers showed themselves to be immensly more powerful - also for computing math formulas. This will not seem strange at all to the average
The big deal with both computers and zettatechnology is their general nature. Zettatechnology doesn't defy the laws of chemistry or physics, it's a general tool which enriches the way one can use said laws.
Other likely similarities is that the first computer was enormous: the first "zettamachine" is likely to be enormous (compared to later generations) as well. In computers anything represented digitally is feasible, there are no borders for what is possible except for lack of time: in zettamachines anything possible within the laws of nature will be possible except for lack of time. And just like computers advanced the science of mathematics, zettamachines will advance the science of chemistry through the nature of being a generalized, multi-function tool.
In XX years time Drexler (and Feynman) will be as historical becaue of their ideas on nano/zettatechnology as Turing and Babbage are for modern computers. His direction of attacking the overall problem is (as I hope I've made abundantly clear) basically the same as theirs. No amount of attack on the specifics of one proposed method of atom manipulation from Smalley will change that (it will only ensure that USA loses to China or possibly Europe in this technology as Smalley only influences the US nanotechnology aims).
There is one other big difference between the two:
Drexler advocates a high le
LungsTM
...will hasten patent reforms ;)
I'm sure Kerry feels he can justify his views on the war regardless of what Bush says, as a matter of fact that is what he is currently doing anyway. Said differently: Kerry being pro-war doesn't make him pro-Bush. He wouldn't hesitate to impeach if he thought it was achievable, and nor would any other democrat and a fair number of republicans.
Impeachment on lying about aluminium tubes (for which no proof has yet appeared) is a lot different to impeachment on "war fraud" in total. In the latter case one would have to prove Bush lied about a lot more (for which there is even less proof) and for which you would have to involve serious charges against almost all of congress, most of departments, intelligence agencies (not only US ones), previous administrations, and the UN itself. Why? Because they all contributed significant proportions of information to what the Bush administration based their beliefs on (and much of which is common facts) and/or passed (positive) judgment on the quality of said information.
Nader has a lot less to lose and a lot more to win and can do pretty much anything he wants to without repercussions as the major parties try to avoid giving him any additional spotlight (i.e. a slander charge is a lot less likely). If Nader had proof which would hold up in court I'm convinced he would go to court, senate, and congress with it, and we would have a totally different ballgame than the present low-signal noise from some parts of the public.
We won't see an impeachment simply because noone has solid proof.
Read the NYT article and it should be apparent to you that they have a much more mellow and subdued tone. Compare it to the inflammatory slant of michaels slashdot news entry and the thrashtalking rampant throughout almost all of the comments here. That's how the NYT article is used as an "excuse".
Read the NYT article as well as most of the comments here and it should also be obvious that this is in fact a very old story. Adding anonymous sources doesn't make an old story new.
For all those who don't get it:
Believing someone lied doesn't automatically make it a fact no matter how strong your conviction unless you have actual proof, such proof hasn't appeared.
If you think that there is such proof then here's a simple test for you:
Kerry has everything to win on proving Bush flat out lied, so if he had, found, or learnt of information and proof that such was the case you would see it used for an impeachment - an impeachment, not partisan politics - instead all you've got is a lot of people who choose to believe something, not proof. There is a reason Kerry avoids using the word "lie", it is because he and his team knows that they have nowhere near the proof neccessary to back it up and would thus be slandering. Both parties regularily bend the truth and the fact that Kerry so carefully avoids "lie" should tell you something about how little they actually have on this issue.
Sounds to me like you (as well as a depressing number of other slashdotters) really should visit the FactCheck link provided in my post - the world isn't as black and white and neither as simplistic as many of you seem to believe...
Good point. Sadly it doesn't amaze me that much as I'm living in Europe (non-US citizen) where a large and loud minority always blame the US no matter what they do and preferably for anything/everything; a perfect example is the other reply you got.
As a side note I hope the US never becomes isolationist again, if they do it will (just as the other times) be incredibly bad for the rest of the world in the long term (and I'm pretty sure it wouldn't stop the anti-USA mob from continuing to blame you for everything imaginable).
There isn't any news in this "news" for anyone, it seems like just another excuse to be able to trashtalk Bush, rewrapping an old story using people "all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity" (NYT quoted). In addition the NYT article states "American nuclear and intelligence experts argued bitterly over the tubes", it should seem obvious for all that choosing which point of view or arguments to believe is not lying even if you are later proved wrong.
For all those who are tired of loudmouths endlessly repeating their favourite rants ("Bush/Kerry is a liar" etc.) here's a link to FactCheck.org: http://factcheck.org/.
Go - Read - Think - Think some more - Read some more - Doubt your assumptions - Think again - Vote (if you're an US citizen) for whoever you agree the most with but please respect that others do not see the world through your eyes, heart and brain (observations/feelings/thoughts).
Please differentiate yourself from the Moore/Limbaugh crowd and be proud of it. Please don't base any vote on who shouts the loudest or for that matter on whoever shouts less.
Put the former into a phrase: "I was lead to read the red book which was a heavy as lead, which was amongst the reeds" - I am sure you will have some people making mistakes here.
:)
You weren't "lead" to read, you were "led" to read ("led" is past tense of "lead"). So yes your point is proven, you will have some people making mistakes
Very interesting concept thank you for posting it (hadn't heard about it before).
, 00.html
:)
## Links for the interested ##
The Australian company involved: http://www.enviromission.com.au/index1.htm
The designers/inventors Schlaich Bergermann and Partner: http://www.sbp.de/en/fla/index.html
(choose Projects | Solar Energy | All Solar-Power Plants, first and last pictures take you to the two solar tower projects)
A recent Wired news item on the subject: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,54917
Please mod parent up as interesting
Many (including me) believe the "Creator" is eternal which makes appearance a non-question.
:) so the discussion is moot.
;)
;)
For the (hopefully scientific) atheist who has problems grasping this idea they can compare the eternal property of said belief to the energy conservation law which states that the sum total of all energy is constant (i.e. one could say that the total amount of energy is an eternal constant). It's related mental patterns and if you believe the law of energy conservation it's not hard to see how others might believe in an eternal deity.
Anyway, deploying Occam's Razor in non-empirical questions hints of ignorance more than anything else: logic run loose without any rationality to herd it in
Believing nothing can exist that isn't empirical isn't scientific (the logic of such a belief would be the equivalent of saying "I can't see it so it isn't there"), but believing science can say something fairly certain about the empirical (detectable) is scientific. Two completely different things.
Religion and science will always exist side by side as neither can disprove each other. For those of us who enjoy both science and religion this is a joy
"Religious" brain-teaser for the atheists:
Particle/mass-less pure waveforms... goes faster than light and is 100% undetectable so you choose yourself if you believe there can be such a thing.
If you choose to believe it's a possibility you ain't atheist no more - sorry
You're burned in effigy yearly so you should get enough flames as it is
I agree with you wholeheartedly and also the gist of your solution but the devil in me can't resist noting that 50% of 150% is 75%, just a friendly nudge :)
So if your solution is followed to the letter (i.e. 50% energy redundancy) one would want a 200% capacity. In addition some energy needs are critical enough to warrant a back-up system which can't be based directly on wind no matter what (think grid failures (both small and large), statistical abnomalities in wind generation etc.).
With 200% capacity one still needs to find a use for the extra 100% unless one just "dumps" it (which would make the used 100% twice as expensive for the consumer).
Such a dumping is the least effective/popular/environmental friendly and so the need for storing electricity/energy efficiently arises none the less. In my opinion the best would be to use the 0-100% extra energy on creation of something akin to methanol fuel because:
- it's easy, raw materials are just about everywhere and the technology is mature
- the energy transmission itself might not be the highest but if one looks at the total cost of the energy transmission (the technology, ease of use, existing infrastructure etc.) it's probably very good
- it scales well both up and down
- it has high mobility and can use existing infrastructure as it's so closely related to gasoline and the like
- it can replace fossile fuels in backup generators, cars and the like
The prime use (at least in early stages) of the generated fuel would of course be for smoothing out the below-100% dips locally (and this would probably lower the needed total capacity towards your original 150%).
One might of course choose to store the energy in different or multiple ways to cater for different fuel/energy markets. The beauty of the "wind to electricity as well as complementary fuels" system is that it is extremely flexible.
By the way one might think one could just dump the electricity on the market directly but by doing so the economics of supply and demand would quickly make 200% the new 100%, i.e. one can always figure out something one needs more energy for.
The problems:
- high cost of entry (capital investments) especially considering wind technology is evolving at a fairly rapid rate which means one might have problems being competitive to newer wind-plants in ten years unless one continues the fairly massive capital investments (that's a "big company" analyzis for the big highly efficient windmills with the newest technology but if one looks at the investment needed on an individual basis at a large scale it pretty much ends up the same with the drops in efficiency, added need for administration, increased system complexity etc. included)
- location, windmills demand a lot of space as well as space with good wind records to achieve the low prices that makes it competitive. In addition more and more people oppose them as eyesores, dangerous to birds, noisy and whatnot. These additional concerns will probably decrease over time
- electrical infrastructure, I'm not sure the grid as it is can handle the increased switching demands, e.g. consider (as a comparison) the changes needed to make a residence not only accept energy (the one-way energy transfer almost all have today) but also provide energy back (two-way energy transfer).
The problems are of course solveable (money) but we're not there yet (moving in the right direction though - could be quicker)